SRTR's Updated Beta Site Live for Review

MINNEAPOLIS ― May 14, 2018 ― In December 2016, SRTR launched a new website that displayed a new 5-tier outcome assessment for all transplant programs in the United States. This new system, which replaced a 3-tier system, was developed over a period of 5 years and approved by SRTR’s Visiting Committee (SVC). In response to community feedback, the 5-tier system was moved to a Beta website in February 2017, and was replaced by the previous 3-tier system on the main SRTR website. The intent of the Beta site was to allow for more feedback and to consider additional improvements. Changes have been made in response to the feedback received, and SRTR is pleased to announce that an updated version of the Beta website has been launched. SRTR will seek feedback for a period of 60 days ending July 13, 2018, after which the SVC will recommend further modification or moving the Beta site to the main SRTR website.

Changes to the site include:

1. Five-tier assessments for waitlist mortality and deceased donor transplant rate have been added, in response to feedback that the new system placed too much emphasis on first-year transplant outcomes.
2. The transplant rate is now based on deceased donor transplants only, rather than on both deceased and living donor transplants, in response to feedback that the combined transplant rate was potentially misleading to patients without a living donor.
3. Living donor transplant counts for liver and kidney programs are now displayed alongside the deceased donor transplant counts, in response to feedback that the site should prominently display programs that perform more living donor transplants.
4. Various improvements to educational materials provided alongside the search results have been made, including 1) improved explanatory text for each outcome as determined through patient focus groups; 2) a key that shows expected outcomes for programs in each tier for waitlist mortality, transplant rate, and first-year graft survival; 3) an indicator showing which outcome has the greatest overall impact on survival after listing for each organ; 4) removal of interpretive text previously provided with each tier, e.g., “worse than expected,” “better than expected.”

More detailed information about these changes is available on our Beta site. These changes were made following feedback received from the community and vetted through patient focus groups and randomized trials of various website iterations during 2017 and early 2018. SRTR welcomes feedback regarding these changes, and will collect feedback for a period of 60 days, at which time the Visiting Committee will consider the feedback and recommend any changes.

Feedback can be provided to srtr@srtr.org. We’ll also be available at the 2018 American Transplant Congress (ATC) meeting (June 2-6), booth #202, and at the 2018 AOPO Annual Meeting (June 18-21), booth #409, to answer any questions. Review the current version of the beta site at beta.srtr.org.